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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28892256">My Darkness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderLizards/pseuds/LavenderLizards'>LavenderLizards</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Prodigal Son (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:14:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,836</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28892256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderLizards/pseuds/LavenderLizards</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>**Nothing sexual** - Malcolm hallucinates his father and has a very important discussion. The question is...is it really a hallucination?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Malcolm Bright &amp; Martin Whitly, Malcolm Bright/Martin Whitly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>My Darkness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Malcolm turned the tumbler slowly. He’d been clinging to it for so long that the golden brown liquid inside had warmed considerably. He swallowed, and sat, and wondered just what it took to break a person. Was he whole? Broken? Or some form of fractured that lived in between?</p><p>Next to where he sat, perched in the living room, the clock ticked. tick.....tock..... tick..... tock.... tick..... tock.....</p><p>The weight of the world manifested itself as an invisible hand that remain wrapped around his throat. It made it hard to swallow. Hard to breathe.</p><p>It was a bad idea...mixing Xanax and bourbon and depression...but here he was. Alone. Doing just that. Bound within the prison-like confines of his loft, time stretching endlessly before him like a death sentence.</p><p>His eyes caught on the rise and fall of the crystal edges that decorated the glass in his hand. It didn’t even feel as though he was holding it anymore. This didn’t seem like his life, these didn’t feel like his hands. He was looking but not seeing, existing but not living, breathing while suffocating.</p><p>The worst moments were those long stretches of night when he was too afraid to close his eyes and turn into the waiting arms of those spindly night terrors. He was a child - afraid of the dark, withering in the silence, terrified of being alone but having no other choice.</p><p>He raised the crystal, meaning to take a sip but ending up gulping down half the contents of the glass. The expensive drink burned down his throat and settled in his empty stomach. His pulse played hop scotch, a beat here, one there, then a skip or two; heart racing in the cage of his ribs that he wanted to pry open. Maybe he could let it out. Be free. Watch it beat in his hands. Feel the warmth threading through his fingers on its way to painting the hardwood floor crimson.</p><p>For a moment, it manifested before him, beating on the ground at his feet. He sucked in a gasp, eyes going wide.</p><p>In that moment, his hand tremor returned and shook the tumbler right out of his fingers. It didn’t have far to fall, but it still landed with a thwack and shattered into several pieces, seeming to bounce and break in slow motion.</p><p>When the ballet of liquid and solid ceased, little puddles of bourbon gathered here and there, interspersed between the curved crystal. He held a quaking hand out and reached for one of the larger pieces. He tried to bring it back to himself, but his earthquake fingers threatened to drop it, so he tightened his grip. Then tightened it some more.</p><p>Wrenching his fingers towards his palm until that bright jolt of pain bit into his sensitive hand with uneven teeth. Red, bright, angry, blood dripped from the newly torn flesh and as it descended, keeping time with the clock, drip.....drop......drip.....drop.....drip.....drop</p><p>He wondered if he should be feeling something. Some emotion. But none rose, not beneath the strangling hands of that little white pill that so wonderfully made the world around him quiet. He could see his emotions, huddled in a corner, waiting for his return. He could identify them, but he couldn’t reach them and had no desire to do so.</p><p>He was so disaffected by the garbled world around him that he didn’t move even when he heard a noise...even when he felt a lead gaze running a ghostly hand over his tear stained cheek land upon his sagging shoulders.</p><p>“Wallowing in self pity is hardly a good look for you.”</p><p>“Go away,” he told his hallucination, sliding from where he was perched and landing on the floor with a thud. His knees thudded to the ground as he went to pick up the pieces of glass. He felt alcoholic wetness seep through his trousers, but didn’t mind it. He reached for the glittering glass bits in front of him, wishing his bleary, sleep deprived eyes could see them as more than just smears of glitter. What if he missed the little shards? What if their clear teeth bit him in the future? </p><p>But that's what always did it, wasn't it? The little pieces, the ones that don't catch the light, the ones you can't see until they're dug so far into your flesh that you may never get them out. Sure, the big pieces hurt, but not quite like the surprising burn of the small ones.</p><p>"This isn't you."</p><p>"You don't know what I am."</p><p>"You mean this isn’t who you are?"</p><p>He looked up through blurry, bloodshot eyes; the blue of his irises a shouting contrast to the red that ought to have been white. "No, I mean what."</p><p>His hallucination crouched in front of him, reaching out to Malcolm’s tight fist, coiled around that first sharp crystal he’d collected. The fingers that touched his flesh felt so real, so solid. The points where they met his thumb radiated warmth and prodded him to open his hand.</p><p>"You're not this glass Malcolm."</p><p>"Are you sure?" his voice was brittle and foreign to his own ears. "Because I know I'm broken."</p><p>"My boy," the hallucination purred, his greenish blue eyes glittering. "Even if that were true, broken things are still beautiful," his smile was as sharp as the crystal. He collected the rest of the pieces from Malcolm's hand and put a hand on Malcolm's elbow, using the shoulder to push off of and get him to his feet.<br/>"You're not real," Malcolm grit in a hoarse whisper.</p><p>"Oh, aren't I?" Martin laughed. He took his handful of glass over to the kitchen and looked around. "I certainly feel real. Just how much have you had to drink? I don’t think you’re supposed to mix your medication with alcohol," he offered in a mockingly disapproving paternal tone. He walked over to the trashcan and pressed the little pedal to open the lid. He poured the pieces inside and brushed his hands of any smaller pieces that might cling to his skin.</p><p>Malcolm hadn't answered his question but he had stood and turned, walking towards Martin.</p><p>"I don't need to tell you that mixing alcohol and anxiety medication is not advised," he frowned, coming back over to where his father stood. The pair remained by the sink, Malcolm blinking several times to take in every detail that his brain had etched into his hallucination. </p><p>His mind painted a vivid picture. </p><p>Martin looked pleased but concerned. His eyes were a muddled oceanic blue and mossy sea glass green. They were crinkled at the corners and had bags underneath. His lips were pink and pulled into a pensive line. His hair was wild, gray and brown and white and Malcolm wondered fleetingly if the flopping curls were soft to the touch.</p><p>So enraptured was Malcolm in the studying of his mental rendering of the doctor, that he jumped when Martin reached out a very solid feeling hand and grasped the young man by his upper arm. "Come on, let's clean those cuts," he tugged him gently towards the sink.</p><p>Malcolm swallowed, the taste of alcohol still thick on the back of his tongue. He wondered why he would be hallucinating his father at a time like this.</p><p>"I can practically hear your gears turning my boy," Martin brought Malcolm’s hand to the space beneath the faucet and turned the water on. His larger hands were reaching out, adjusting the temperature, flicking at the water to check its warmth. "Perfect," he said before bringing his fingers to wrap lightly around Malcolm's wrist. He moved to guide Malcolm's hands under the water and Bright hissed. The clear stream turned red as the water slid over his slices.</p><p>"I hate to see you like this," Martin crowded closer.</p><p>"You're the reason I'm broken," Malcolm shot back.</p><p>"Am I?" Martin's face was far too close to Malcolm's, just over his left shoulder, peering down at the hands in the sink. "Maybe I'm partly to blame...perhaps even mostly to blame...but..." he trailed off, rubbing his thumbs over the cuts before reaching for the soap.</p><p>"But what?"</p><p>"But I think part of your problem is you. Your denial of your nature. The unwillingness to explore your...darker...parts. The fear that lives caged in your heart and wreaks havoc on your mind. So much cognitive dissonance..." Martin rubbed the soap into the cuts and Malcolm squirmed, but Martin’s arms bracketed the smaller man in place. It should have been alarming, but Bright felt nothing but safe.</p><p>"Fear? Fear of what..." Malcolm asked, knowing the answer before it even left his lips. Still...he wanted to hear the hallucination say it. He wanted to hear his subconscious say it.</p><p>"Fear that you're like me of course," Martin held his hands tight in his own. He treated the cuts with such intense concentration and care.</p><p>“Just because I covered up a murder, doesn’t mean I’m a murderer,” he swallowed the near lie down and almost choked on it.</p><p>Something large and dark and dangerous loomed in Malcolm's mind, slipping down his spine to settle in his sour stomach. The monster was supposed to be standing behind him, not churning inside of him. His mouth was dry and his heart palpated. This thing rising inside of him was the thing he was too afraid to look at directly, too scared to analyze, too cowardly to bring up in therapy. This was the thing that haunted him. </p><p>"Y-you should let me go," Malcolm said, but he made no effort to move.</p><p>"Never," Martin whispered in his ear, sending an earthquake shudder zipping down his body. He wasn't sure if the 'never' referred to letting him go physically, or in the broader, psychological sense. But apparently, Whitly had no plans of letting his boy go, and Malcolm knew he wouldn't, even before he offered the timid half plea.</p><p>Finally, Martin had sufficiently cleaned out the cuts and washed all the soap away. He turned off the faucet, but remained behind Malcolm, grabbing paper towel and pressing it into the cut hand.</p><p>Martin turned his head so that his rough beard scratched against Malcolm's flesh. "You're so beautiful when you bleed," Martin whispered the words onto his pulse point, “almost as beautiful as when you cry.”</p><p>"You shouldn't," Malcolm protested, pushing Martin back and away.</p><p>"I shouldn't what?" the doctor played coy, taking a step forward and trapping Malcolm between he and the sink in a cage of his outheld parallel arms.<br/>"You don't need to fight it," the voice in front of him permitted.</p><p>"I-I should. I...ah…” he winced as Martin moved and grabbed his wounded hand. He pressed a large thumb against the largest gash and blood came surging out.<br/>It alarmed Malcolm how satisfying that bright and bitter burst of pain felt. He wanted the pain to ground him to reality, to punish him for what he’d done and what he would inevitably do. Part of him wanted Martin to hurt him and he couldn't understand that desire - wasn't sure if he wanted to.</p><p>"I don't...want...this," he lied, eyes huge and pleading.</p><p>"Don't you?" Martin tilted his head. "If I'm a hallucination...a manifestation of your innermost desires...then by definition aren't you telling me that you *do* want this? You do want me here, you do want to hear what I have to say, and you do want to face your true self before it consumes you whole...in one big gulp like a snake." </p><p>"You should see yourself," Martin continued. "Hair fallen out of place, lips parted in expectation, crystal clear blue eyes swallowed up by those black hole pupils," his hands had moved to Malcolm’s wrists and both were tight enough to leave ten, fingerprint sized bruises on Malcolm's pale skin. "You're the picture of conflict. How long will it be until your team catches on? I bet they have already. They’re going to turn on you when they see what you really are..."</p><p>"Don't say that," his voice split. "I never asked for this...I...I’m not a killer. I’m not like you. They’d never just abandon me."</p><p>"Don't lie to yourself boy," his tone turned dark. "That’ll only get you a cell adjacent to mine. Although I wouldn’t be opposed to being roommates," he said chipperly. “Still, I do much prefer being free.”</p><p>“Y-you’re not free,” Malcolm stammered, unsure if this Martin really was a hallucination.</p><p>“And neither are you. You’re trapped my boy. Held fast by bars of your own making.</p><p>Malcolm wriggled his wrists free and watched Martin drop his large hands to his sides. The profiler brought his hands up to Martin's chest, the wounds weren't bandaged yet, and he left red smears on the white Claremont shirt.</p><p>It was so real - the shout of red against white, the way the fabric caught on his torn skin. He stared at the red and flashed back to that fateful day when he had stabbed Martin in Claremont. He re-lived the scene...he felt the resistance of Martin’s clothing, of his flesh and fat and sinew as he forced the blade forward. And to his horror, the event made a thrill bubble under the surface of his rapidly blackening soul.  </p><p>"I’m going to tell them the truth…I have to.”</p><p>“And go to jail? Send your sister to jail?” Martin’s eyes narrowed.</p><p>He swallowed but had no spit and could hear his own loud gulp in the quiet space. Time again twisted and stretched, leaving him stuck in a moment where it was just the sound of he and Martin’s breathing, the whirl of the heater, the sound of the clock.</p><p>“Accept who you are.”</p><p>“Never.”</p><p>“Then it will sink through you like a rot and leave you a husk of a human being.”</p><p>Tears stung at Malcolm’s eyes and he realized that his hand was still on Martin’s chest. He could feel the heat under his hand, the steady beat of his father’s pulse. Thump...thump...thump...thump…</p><p>It was more soothing than it had any right to be.</p><p>“I’m scared of what I’m becoming,” he said in a near whisper.</p><p>Martin brought a hand to the side of Malcolm’s face and swiped away a tear that he hadn’t realized had fallen. He used the same thumb that he'd wedged into Malcolm's cut and in doing so, he left a watery smear of Malcolm's own blood upon his pink cheek.</p><p>He wanted to shake the hand off, to run away, but where could he run to?</p><p>“This isn’t real. You’re not real,” he said in a broken hush.</p><p>"Then make me go away," Martin answered back softly. "I'm just an illusion after all."</p><p>Malcolm's hands slid further up his chest, leaving a cherry red trail in their wake. He brought his hands to Martin's neck and felt that same pulse there.</p><p>"You don't want me to go away," Martin offered. "You want me to spear you with the truth just as you speared me through the heart."</p><p>A strangled sound slipped out of Malcolm's mouth.</p><p>“Tell me, do you think it hurts just as bad as that knife? Do you think about that as much as I do? The steadiness of your hand? The gleam in your eye?”</p><p>“Why?” he asked, dodging the admittance that he thought about it constantly.</p><p>“Why what?” </p><p>“Why do you want me to be a killer so desperately?” </p><p>“Oh Malcolm,” Martin chuckled and Malcolm could feel the movement reverberate in his throat. His beard tickled the back of his hand and he wondered why he let his hand linger here, at the killer’s clavicle like a fleshy necklace.</p><p>“Malcolm, I don’t know if you’ll ever really be a killer or not. That’s not even what I need...that’s nearly incidental.” </p><p>Confusion swirled inside of Malcolm who felt suddenly dragged under the surface of sanity, tossed in the waters of bafflement like a violent wave pool. </p><p>“But...that’s all you ever wanted…”</p><p>“No sweetheart,” he smiled. “The thrill of taking lives as a killer...the thrill of shoving souls back into bodies as a doctor...those were my thrills. All I ever wanted from you was to be close. For you to realize that I’m an inescapable part of you - which you have.”</p><p>He closed a hand over Malcolm’s wrist that was still so close to his neck.</p><p>“Would I delight if your predilections were identical to mine? Of course. But...I’m starting to think that you have darkness, it may just be different from mine.”</p><p>The young man grit his jaw and dared to entertain a question that terrified him.</p><p>“And what is my darkness Dad?” </p><p>Martin smiled, the warmth of it spreading across his features like the dawn breaking, it's light making his eyes shine.</p><p>“Maybe it’s enough that your darkness is...knowing what I am, and loving me anyway.”</p>
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